steven0461 comments on Just a reminder: Scientists are, technically, people. - Less Wrong

6 Post author: PhilGoetz 20 March 2009 08:33PM

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Comment author: steven0461 21 March 2009 02:45:29PM 4 points [-]

moral reasoning is reasoning, and smarter people are better at reasoning

Philosophers are pretty smart.

Comment author: Annoyance 21 March 2009 03:22:38PM 0 points [-]

Philosophers are pretty smart.

They get good scores on IQ tests. But in terms of dealing with reality, and producing real knowledge, they're incredibly dumb.

High INT, low WIS.

Comment author: sketerpot 22 March 2009 05:01:59PM 0 points [-]

Generalizations, ahoy! That being said,

High INT, low WIS.

And sometimes way-too-high CHA. If you're naive and looking for wisdom, it's too easy to listen to someone talking nonsense about philosophy and be completely taken in. Witness the success of the irritatingly wrong postmodern thinking which holds that science is just another cultural opinion with no more validity than any other. If that were true then transistors would work about as well as rain dances or ancient Hindu theurgy, and yet people continue to spread the meme.

Comment author: billswift 21 March 2009 10:13:09PM 0 points [-]

If they were that smart they would be avoiding politics; then again, maybe the smart ones are and that's why the gov't ethicists seem so incredibly dumb.